Written by Paul Gamlowski
A message traveled through a signal in the cosmos …
On a remote planet, hundreds of millions of miles away from our own, we hoped to find suitable resources to bring back to our own world. A drilling probe discovered what appeared to be soil samples with biological material.
The discovery stirred an international dispute as the remote planet was also found to provide vast resources and rare minerals for our planet's increasing scarcity.
Several of our most advanced sovereign states developed and launched the probe under the international collaboration. So they argued who could make a claim, and they failed to reach an agreement.
In a top-secret operation, one of the nations sent a team of explorers to investigate and gather another biological sample. Once they dug it up, they tested it in a space lab. They deemed it benign. As a result, their leadership cleared them to bring the sample back to our planet, and they took it deep underground for further testing.
The news quickly leaked, and our entire world became aware of the discovery.
Our species rejoiced …
The discovery became a great source of excitement and conflict, as it brought on many theological and scientific debates. The mere notion of life forms on other planets and that life existed elsewhere brought our world together.
But, one of our most distinguished astrobiologists emphatically protested. The scientist warned that we shouldn’t stay on planets discovered with both biological samples and abundant in resources.
Yet no one understood why he said that because he and all his research mysteriously disappeared.
86 years later …
The contagion wiped out most of our population, and we haven’t found a cure. We expect to face global extinction within the next decade.
A group of our last remaining scientists accessed a top-secret archive in an underground vault since we had no government left to protect it. They discovered a series of notes from the astrobiologist who disappeared. He tried to warn us that planets rich with resources and with random biosamples were already claimed. For aliens to protect that claim, they would use our greatest weapon against us — curiosity.
I am broadcasting this message into the stars with the hope that it won’t be intercepted, and to warn the species of your planet not to make the same mistake we did ...
If you find a biological sample, don’t let the curiosity destroy you!
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